Sunday, January 24, 2016

This is Snow Disappointing

Well, I see that a large portion of the country is/was affected by the big snowstorm. I've seen so many beautiful pictures on the news and social media of snow covered landscapes and kids all bundled up and having a great time outside. I would post some snow pictures for y'all but I don't have any due to the fact that, well, we live in Mississippi.......and not even in northern Mississippi so that, right there, always takes our snow chances down a pretty good bit. It has been unbelievably cold here though. Well, for Mississippi, it's been unbelievably cold but you can't very well post pictures of that, now can you?

Living with snow disappointment is just something that comes along with being a southerner. I know there are some of you who would be more than delighted to donate some of your snow surplus to us, the less fortunate. Some of your kids probably don't even think that much about the snow because it's such a common thing where you live. Kind of like our kids and.....um..........mosquitos. Ok, bad example. But, southern kids, well, there's not much that thrills them more than a good snow and, where we live, that may only happen a handful of times during one's childhood.

Because of the rare snowfall here, there are a few things that only those living in the deep South can understand about winter weather.......

1) Dirty snowmen. We see the beautiful snowmen you make up North from your storehouses of sparkling snow. They're 6 feet tall and round and plump and a beautiful, alabaster white. Just like in the Christmas movies. Those are really nice. But, ours just don't look like the ones you make up there. Southern snowmen stand about 2 feet tall, marbled with mud, and have so much pine straw protruding from them that they look like voodoo dolls. It takes a whole front yard worth of snow to build one of those two footers down here so the southern mama has to get pictures of all the kids standing in front of the house before they can make one. After that, you're just left with wet grass and wet grass doesn't make good pictures. Not only that, she needs to keep the camera handy because in about an hour, that snowman will be melted down and looking like the Washington Monument. Time is of the essence but, even at its peak, the southern snowman is nothing to be very proud of.

"Ok, stand by your ugly snowman and smile."

2) Insufficient cold weather gear. Down here, there just isn't much reason to have the heavy duty outerwear so, if a snow comes, you can be caught ill-prepared for long periods of play. The goal of the southern mama is to piece together enough components to keep the children from having to have anything amputated at the end of the day. Down here, the term, snow clothes, is synonymous with hunting clothes so you'll see an awful lot of camo in southern snow pictures. When I was little, if we didn't have enough hats to go around, someone would invariably end up with Daddy's hunter orange toboggan on their head. And when we couldn't find our gloves because we hadn't used them in two years or when they got all wet or muddy, a thick pair of socks on our hands was never out of the question as a suitable back up. Because such frigid temps are uncommon down in these parts, mothers will always go overboard as we think that the cold is responsible for any and all sicknesses that lead to death. We can't help it. It's what our mamas told us. Cotton balls in the ears, a hat pulled snugly over the eyelids, and three layers zipped up to the chin. With all the bundling, southern kids can't see, hear, or turn their head but it's always a good time.

Don't know who this little dude is but I'm pretty sure he's a southern boy getting ready to tackle the snow.

3) Going to bed with so many questions. It seems like most of our snow chances are greatest after the kids' bedtime. We never have snow that's so bad that they'll call school off the night before. The ten o'clock news usually announces that the schools will be making their decisions about closures the following morning. This can make for a long night for the kids. I remember every time I'd wake up as a kid, I'd look outside to see if there was any sign of wintry precipitation. "Oh, I think I see snow falling," I'd think......but it would just be the sleepy in my eyes and the hope in my heart playing tricks on me. Oh, how southern kids long to see their school's name scrolling across the bottom of the television screen. Just once. But, the morning usually brings disappointment for them as they head out to school and the only thing crunching beneath their feet is the dead, brown grass.

"Oh, please, say Northside Elementary! Please, please, please."

4) What to do with all thebread, milk, and canned goods. Down here, if the weather man uses the words, snow, frozen precipitation, sleet, ice, accumulation, or any combination thereof, the grocery stores shelves will empty within the hour. You see, we don't know how to drive in any of that down here so our tendency to overreact is real. I mean, I guess you never know when the "Big One" will come and you'll be trapped in your home for a week with only 6 cans Hormel chili with beans standing between you and death. And if ice was predicted when I was young, we had the bathtub filled with water. I never understood what we were going to do with that. It was just what you did. I don't ever recall using the water but, by golly, it was there if we needed it.

Clearly, this wasn't taken in the South as indicated by the fact that there are still Twinkies and powdered donuts on the shelves. Hello?

5) White Christmas, my foot. We sing all the same songs y'all sing about dreaming of a white Christmas and letting it snow because we have no place to go but the truth of the matter is that the odds of it snowing here any day of the year are slim and the odds of that illusive day falling on Christmas are just slightly higher than Hell's odds.

We're usually more prone to a wet, humid Christmas.

6) Make-do snow toys. Well, needless to say, we don't have sleds and snowboards in our garage like the Northerners do. In the South, that would be the modern day equivalent to Noah building the ark out in his dry front yard and how all his neighbors laughed. "Y'all move down here from Canada?" they'd want to know. "Y'all Olympians or something?" they'd jeer. No, instead of the traditional, store bought snow accessories, we usually just make do with what we have.......and garbage can lids, laundry baskets, pool floats, cardboard, kayaks, rope, and ATVs are what we have. Sometimes, you have to use things for purposes other than for what they're intended. Southerners are the best at making do.

I can't be totally sure but I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that this was taken in the South.

So, half of the country never wants to see snow again as long as they live and the other half is hoping that they'll just get one snow day before spring. The snow is always whiter on the other side, I suppose. I hope if you're in the half that's sick of the sight of snow, we'd love to send y'all one of our warm fronts to melt it all away. And if you find yourself on the side of wishing for just one day to frolic in the white stuff, may an arctic blast sweep down and make your dreams come true, too.

6 comments:

Hey There, you hit the nail on the head. I def have photos from my childhood of me in camouflage overalls, socks on my hands standing next to a snowman that was equal parts snow and pinestraw!!! Love it! Love following your blog. (Www.funthingtheblog.com)

I know! Rained just about every day the first week of January, because you know, El Nino. Nothing since, maybe some rain at the end of this weekend. El Nino is messing with everyone.My brother lived in Conn and does not miss the winter at all. Beautiful for the rest of the year though.Love the difference between the north and south. And yes, it is a big deal when it snows in the south. Remember Atlanta?Keep warm;) Kathleen in Az

1. Speaking of southern snowmen, we always had to use rocks for eyes because...coal? Isn't that what bad kids get in their stocking? We sure as heck didn't have any!2. Went riding in the Rhino this Friday in our 5" of snow and I had to wear my son's camo coveralls. I was SMOKING!3. My hometown is Vilonia, so waiting through that alphabetical list of schools was MURDER!!4. No milk and bread here, it's cheese dip, brownie mix and diet DP. 5. I remember a year when we had a heavy frost on Christmas Day, and I just convinced myself it was a white Christmas. 6. We use old car hoods for sleds up here - you might be a redneck if...